as what she said next, while following the script: “I swear to God.” The Saturday Night Live skit in which Slate accidentally used the four-letter F-word involved two “biker chicks” who repeatedly use the word, “frickin’.” Slate slips and, when she does, you can see the chagrin and concern on her face as she puffs her cheeks, as if to say, “I can’t believe...

Michael Keefe, The Denver Post This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited. All rights reserved.

Having read two of Andrew J. Bacevich’s books now (The New American Militarism and The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism) I know that he is always worth reading, even when you don’t agree with his conclusions (although I mostly do).

As the cartoon above says, War is Big Business. This major issue is discussed, if at all, in passing by the mainstream media. Newspapers in India’s capital city had to borrow a news story from The Washington Post that “major US arms suppliers are wooing Indian defence agents and officials.” Emily Wax of The Washington Post continues: Almost every weekend, there are cocktails and closed-door...

Unidentified members of Iran’s august Assembly of Experts, purported under Iran’s revolutionary constitution to oversee and be capable of removing that nation’s ’supreme leader’ who never faces the verdict of the average voter. (The same can apparently be said of that nation’s president, but setting that aside for the moment … While Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad...

In the famous Peter O’Toole film “Night Of The Generals”, the record-keeper in Paris tells Omar Sharif (acting as German officer investigating murders of prostitutes in Nazi-occupied Warsaw and Paris): “Major, why do you bother…All Generals are murderers!” That was a film dialogue. In real life Generals are not murderers. They are expected to carry out the commands of their...

A hypocrite is someone other than me!  That seems to be a good working definition for most of us.  Of course the pious are already distancing themselves from my definition.  But they are all a bunch of hypocrites. Seldom, if ever, do we pair the word hypocrite with a first-person pronoun.  We all know that we’re not the hypocrites in the room.  It’s those other people over there.  Look at those people....

Iraqis ponder the impact of September 11 on them. So how were Iraqis feeling on September 11, 2009, eight years after the attacks that led – justifiably or not – to the invasion of their land? Judging by this op-ed from Iraqi magazine Iraq of Tomorrow, the people of the country are anything but grateful for the role America has played in their nation’s recent history – despite being...

In Afghanistan, the US is heading towards futility if not defeat mainly because no policy maker in Washington or its allied European capitals is willing to notice the bull in the china shop obvious to others. Washington and its NATO allies are focused on the awful recent elections. They are running in circles trying to establish democracy and rule of law in country where the lifestyle of rural folk dominated...

Ever since the collapse of the mighty Soviet Union, the doomsayers are having field day predicting the break-up of India and Pakistan. Last year, a leading Russian political analyst stated that the economic turmoil in the USA had confirmed his long-held view that the country would divide into separate parts. Cashing on this phobia, Slate offered last month a “week-long thought experiment” on “the...

Justin Elliott at Talking Points Memo interviewed her earlier today. She compared herself to Nelson Mandela and accused Judge Clay Land of treason. No point in trying to quote from the TPM piece. I wouldn’t know which part to choose. Just read it. It’s jaw-dropping.

Muntather Zaidi, the Iraqi television correspondent who became (in)famous when he hurled his shoes at then-President Bush yelling, “This is a gift from the Iraqis! This is the farewell kiss, you dog!” was released from an Iraqi prison yesterday. Zaidi was sentenced to three years in prison, but his sentence was later shortened to one year and then the judiciary ordered him released this month. According...

‘THE TRIAL OF EMBASSY WORKERS’ Who detests the other more: The United States government or the regime at the helm of the Islamic Republic of Iran? Based on this article from the tightly state-controlled Kayhan newspaper, one would have to think that the Iranian Mullahs come out on top on that question. For Kayhan, that newspaper’s regular columnist on foreign affairs, Kian Mokhtari, writes...

David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Star This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Via Mahablog:

I don’t know what to say about this. Obviously, it’s extraordinary, disturbing, deeply depressing, that the one country in the world that for so long was known for innovation and technological brilliance — a nation that was founded on Enlightenment principles of reason and open intellectual inquiry — is now sliding back into a primeval muck of ignorance, superstition, and religious zealotry:

[ Editor's Note: The title and URL for this post has been changed from the original. -- PMA ] They probably will not succeed in what they are trying to do (at least not this time), but it’s frightening to some of us to know that there are organized groups with this agenda: A nationwide anti-abortion group launched an effort in Florida Friday to outlaw all abortions and certain types of birth control,...

I think God created teenage rebellion to keep humanity from ever being too certain about anything.  Most humans believe they have a balanced or appropriate view of existence.  In other words, we think we’re mostly right.  Perpetually thinking you’re mostly wrong is a difficult way to exist. Consequently, we develop a certitude about our social, political, cultural, and spiritual convictions.  Individuals...

In an official White House announcement yesterday, the President of the United States proclaimed September 11, 2009, as Patriot Day and National Day of Service and Remembrance in honor of the individuals who lost their lives as a result of the terrorist attacks against the United States that occurred on September 11, 2001, and invited the Governors of the United States and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and...

Has America’s reaction to September 11 – its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq – accelerated the end of U.S. dominance of the international system? According to commentator He Liangliang of Hong Kong’s Phoenix TV – one of the few privately-owned cable operators permitted by Beijing authorities to broadcast to the Mainland – America’s days as a global cop are well and...

I posted this last year but it is worth posting again. Via the Washington Post’s On Faith: Lamentations: 9/11 I live in New York City. Two friends, including someone at whose wedding I had recently been the rabbi died in the World Trade Center. The acrid smell came through my apartment windows for days and sacred ashes, which I wiped away with tears, fell on my window sills for weeks. My children who...

One Right wing blogger raised a bit of a stir earlier this week with his “interesting” explanation of why so many Jews are “liberal” when, if they had the brains God gave a goat, they should be hard core, conservative Republicans. Here’s one Jewish lady who was shocked to find out how unintelligent she must be and how Republicans are the real philo-semitic party. (Don’t feel...

India’s favourite spiritual book, The Bhagavad Gita, has made a dramatic impact at Harvard, Wharton and other business schools with its universal message of “concentration, consistency, and cooperation”. In a nutshell: “You can’t succeed in business (or war) unless you develop the intellect, which controls the mind and body.” The Gita remains relevant in the conduct of any...

Three British Muslims were convicted yesterday of plotting to commit “mass murder on an unimaginable scale” by blowing up transatlantic airliners in an attempt to kill thousands of people in the air and on the ground, reports The Independent. “Last night, senior Scotland Yard detectives told The Independent that, if the plot had been successful, the death toll could easily have exceeded the...

When one wants to get a sense of how people on the Afghan-Pakistan border feel about something, Pakistan’s Frontier Post, based in Quetta, Pakistan, is a good place to look. In this indignant editorial reaction to yesterday’s ill-fated NATO attack in Afghanistan’s Kunduz Province, the Frontier Post equates NATO forces with Taliban fighters, attacks the sincerity of the West’s stance...